The present invention relates to a vehicle body structure associated with an air cleaner for supplying clean air to an engine, and more particularly to a system which prevents suction of water into the air cleaner.
When running a vehicle on roads covered or submerged with water due to flooding, the surface water may enter the vehicle. When the surface of the flood water reaches a lower portion of a radiator support panel installed in a forward portion of the vehicle, that water may rise along the radiator support panel. At the upper portion of the radiator support panel there is an opening of a suction duct for providing relatively cold air into the vehicle's engine to achieve greater engine power than that of an engine which is not provided with such cold air. Flood water may be suctioned into the opening of the suction duct. This causes the water to be suctioned with air into the air cleaner by the vacuum created in the engine, and such suctioned water impairs performance of the air cleaner and the engine.
As a previous attempt to solve such problems, there is known a vehicle body structure wherein the forward end of the suction duct is located in front of the radiator support panel thereby preventing water suction into the air cleaner.
As a headlight and other parts are installed in front of the forward end of the suction duct, the space should be provided between the headlight and the forward end of the suction duct. But, the distance between the forward end of the suction duct and the radiator support panel is typically not sufficient to prevent water suction. In such structures water rises along the radiator support panel to be suctioned into the air cleaner by the vacuum created in the engine. This still adversely affects the performances of the air cleaner and the engine.